tenet of the ancient Church. The early fathers regarded the ministry of angels as a consoling and beautiful doctrine, and so much at that time was it held in veneration, that the founders of Christianity cautioned their early converts against permitting their reverence to degenerate into adoration. We now go to the opposite extreme, and seldom think of their existence; yet what is to be found in this belief, even if the Scriptures had not revealed it, which is contrary to reason?"

REV. DR. A. BARNE's testimony:

"In this doctrine, the ministry of spirits, there is nothing absurd. It is no more impossible that angels should be employed to aid men, than that one man should aid another; certainly not as impossible as that the Son of God should come down not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Angelic ministration constitutes the beauty of the moral arrangements on earth.' Is there any impropriety in supposing that they do now what the Bible says they ever have done?"

The London Times reported the Bishop as using the following language, in a Sunday sermon, at Westminster Abbey:

"There were many important lessons to be gathered from Jacob's dream. The especial lesson taught was that God constantly controlled our thoughts, and that we are constantly in connection with the world of spirits, whilst we think we are far away amid earthly things He entreated those whose thoughts turned heavenward not to check them, for they might be certain that they are enlightened by the same glorious presences which cheered Jacob in the wilderness."

VICTOR HUGO's testimony:

The exiled, yet loved! Hugo's life has been a strange one-so gentle, so rich and radiant. All nature seems to have poured into him her tributary streams of imagery, sympathy, beauty and poetry. Thus organized, it is impossible for him to be other than a Spiritualist. In his "Toilers of the Sea," he writes:

"There is a time when the unknown reveals itself in a mysterious way to the spirit of man. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness will make manifest things hitherto unseen, and then close again upon the mysteries within. Such visions have occasionally the power to effect a transfiguration in those whom they visit. They convert a poor cameldriver into a Mahomet; a peasant girl tending her goats into a Joan of Arc. Solitude generates a certain amount of sublime exaltation. * * A mysterious lucidity of mind results, which converts the student

*

* * *

into a seer, and the poet into a prophet; herein we find a key to the mysteries of Horeb, and Elron, and Ombos; to the intoxication of Castalian laurels, the revelations of the month Busion. Hence, too, we have Pelcia at Dodoua; Phemonæ at Delphos; Trophonius in Zebadea; Ezekiel on the Chebar; and Jerome in the Thepais Luther holding converse with devils in his garret at Wittenburgh; Pascal shutting out the view of the infernal regions with the screen of his cabinet; the African Obi conversing with the white-faced God, Bossum, are each and all the same phenomena, diversely interpreted by the minds in which they manifest themselves, according to their capacity and power. Luther and Pascal were grand, and are grand still."

In a funeral address delivered at the interment of Emily De Putren, this French author said most feelingly:

"Death is the greatest of liberties; it is also the furthest progress. Death is a higher step for all who have lived upon its height. Dazzling and holy every one receives his increase, everything is transfigured in the light and by the light. He who has been no more than virtuous on earth becomes beauteous; he who has only been beauteous becomes sublime, and he who has only been sublime becomes good. * * The soul, the marvel of this great celestial departure which we call death, is here. Those who that depart still remain near us-they are in a world of light, but they as tender witnesses hover about our world of darkness. * * * The dead are invisible, but they are not absent."

WILLIAM HOW ITT's testimony:

*

This eminent man and distinguished author, so scholarly in attainment and affluent in classical allusion, continually testifies a living apostle-to a present communion with the spirit-world. He wrote thus vigorously last season to the English Dunfermline Press:

* * * * "SIR-Who are the men who have in every country embraced Spiritualism? The rabble? the ignorant? the fanatic? By no means. But the most intelligent and able men of all classes. When such is the case, surely it becomes the 'majority of reflecting men,' to use the words of your editor, to reflect on these facts. Let numbers go for nothing; but, when the numbers add also first rate position, pre-eminent abilities, largest experience of men and their doings, weight of moral, religious, scientific, and political character, then the man who does not look into what these declare to be truth, is not a reflecting, but a very foolish and prejudiced man. Now, it is very remarkable that, when we proceed to enumerate the leading men who have embraced modern Spiritualism, we begin also to enumerate the pre-eminent intellects and characters of the age. In America you justly say that the shrewd and honest

Abraham Lincoln was a Spiritualist. He was a devoted one. So also were, and are, the Hon. Robert Dale Owen and Judge Edmonds; so was Professor Hare. You are right in all these particulars. In fact, almost every eminent man in the American Government is a Spiritualist. Garrison, whom the anti-Spiritualists were so lately and enthusiastically fêteing in England, for his zealous services in the extinction of negro slavery, is an avowed Spiritualist. Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, a man whose masterly, political reasoning has done more than any man to direct the course of American politics, is a Spiritualist. Longfellow, the poet, now in England, and just treated with the highest honors by the University of Cambridge, and about to be fêted by the whole literary world of England, is, and has long and openly been, a Spiritualist. But I might run over the majority of the great names of America. Turn to France. The shrewd Emperor, the illustrious Victor Hugo, the sage and able statesman Guizot, one of the most powerful champions of Christianity, are Spiritualists. So is Garibaldi, in Italy. In England, you might name a very long and distinguished list of men and women, of all classes, Spiritualists. If you had the authority you might mention names which would startle no little those who affect to sneer at Spiritualism. It is confidently said that a Spiritualist sits on the throne of these realms, as we know that such do sit on those of the greatest nations of Europe. We know that the members of some of the chief ducal houses of Scotland, and of the noble houses of Ireland and England, are Spiritualists. Are all these people likely to plunge their heads and their reputations into an unpopular cause without first looking well into it? But then, say the opponents, the scientific don't affect it. They must greatly quanfy this assertion, for many and eminent scientific men have had the sense and the courage to look into it, and have found it a great truth. The editor of the Dunfermline Press remarks on your observations regarding Robert Chambers, that Chambers' Journal of the 13th of May last, has a certain article not flattering to Spiritualism. True, but not the less is Robert Chambers an avowed Spiritualist, and boldly came forward on the Home and Lyon trial, to express his faith in Mr. Home. The editor might quote articles in the Times, the Standard, the Star, and the Daily Telegraph, against Spiritualism, yet it is a wellknown fact that on all these journals some of their ablest writers are Spiritualists; but is it not always prudent for a man to say what he is. This is not an age in love with martyrdom.

"Numbers of scientific men have embraced Spiritualism. Dr. Hare, mentioned by you, was a great electrician, rated by the Americans little, if any, inferior to Faraday. He did exactly what people now want scientific men to do. He thought Spiritualism a humbug, and went regularly into an inquiry in order to expose it. But it did-as it has done in every case that I have heard of, where scientific men have gone candidly and fairly into the examination-after two years of testing and proving, convince him of its truth. Dr. Elliotson, a very scientific man, and for years violently opposed to Spiritualism, so soon as he was

willing to inquire, became convinced, and now blesses God for the knowledge of it. Dr. Ashburner, his fellow editor of the Zoist, has also long been an avowed Spiritualist. Mr. Alfred Wallace, a scientific man and excellent naturalist, who was on the Amazon with Mr. Bates, has published his conviction of its truth. Sir Charles Wheatstone, some time ago, on seeing some remarkable phenomena in his own house. declared them real. And just now, on the Home and Lyon trial, the public have seen Mr. Varley, a man of first rate science, the electrician to the Electric and International and the Atlantic Telegraph Companies. come forward and make affidavit of his having investigated the facts of Spiritualism, and found them real. Now, after such cases, why this continual cry out for examination by scientific men? Scientific men of the first stamp have examined and reported that it is a great fact. Scientific men by the hundred and the thousand have done it, and yet the crowd go on crying for a scientific man. Why? Simply because it is much easier to open their mouths and bleat as sheep do in a flock than exert their minds and their senses. It is time that all this folly had an end. There are now more Spiritualists than would populate Scotland seven times over at its present scale of population; and surely the testimony of such a multitude, including statesmen, philosophers, historians, and scientific men, too, is as absolutely decisive as any mortal matter can be. And pray, my good friend, don't trouble yourself that your neighbors call mad. You are mad in most excellent company. great men of all ages who have introduced or accepted new ideas were mad in the eyes of their cotemporaries. As I have said, Socrates and Christ and St. Paul were mad; Galileo was mad; De Caus was mad; Thomas Gray, who first advocated railways, was declared by the Edinburgh Review mad as a march hare. They are the illustrious tribe of madmen by whom the world is propelled, widened as by Columbus, and enlightened as by Bacon, Newton, Des Cartes, and the rest of them, who were all declared mad in their turn. And don't be anxious about Spiritualism. From the first moment of its appearance to this, it has moved on totally unconcerned and unharmed amidst every species of opposition, misrepresentation, lying, and obstruction, and yet has daily and hourly grown, and spread, and strengthened, as if no such evil influences were assailing it. Like the sun, it has traveled on its course unconscious of the clouds beneath it. Like the ocean, it has rolled in billows over the slimy creatures at its bottom, and dashed its majestic waves over every proud man who dared to tread within its limits. And whence comes this? Obviously, from the hand which is behind it-the hand of the Great Ruler of the Universe. For my part, having long perceived this great fact, I have ceased to care what people say or do against Spiritualism; to care who believes or does not believe; who comes into it or stays out; certain that it is as much a part of God's economy of the universe as the light of the sun, and will, therefore, go on and do its

work."

yon

All the

ROBERT BELL's testimony:

This distinguished dramatist, novelist and Spiritualist, of England, wrote one of the most graphic notices ever penned upon the subject of spiritual phenomena, describing the incidents occurring in a seance of Mr. Home:

"This Mr. Thackeray, then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, ventured to publish in the eighth number of that journal (August, 1860), an article entitled Stranger than Fiction.

"Mr. Thackeray, in a note, spoke of the writer as a friend of twenty. five years standing, for whose good faith and honorable character he would vouch.' Thackeray was himself a believer in Spiritualism, and with good reason. He had, I am told, evidence of its reality in his own family which made belief irresistible. Mr. Bell's narrative created great commotion in the literary world.

"It is true that the writer was a man of good faith and honorable character, who simply described what he and several others who were present had seen in a lady's drawing-room. His assailants, however, knew that it was a great imposture.' Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Bell thereafter kept their knowledge of spiritual subjects to themselves; but Mr. Bell had become too firm a convert to be indifferent to the spread of the great truth, and it was he who quietly got together the committee which met in Mr. Boucicault's drawing-room to investigate the claims of the Davenports; and that committee, composed of twenty-four leading men in science and literature, it will be recollected, declared upon the suggestion of Lord Bury, that there was no trickery in any form, no confederates nor machinery, and certainly the phenomena which had taken place in their presence were not the product of legerdemain.”—London Spiritual Magazine.

REV. E. C. TOWNE's testimony:

Preaching the funeral sermon of the great and good John Pierpont, poet reformer, and Spiritualist, Mr. Towne said:

"Other men might speak of peace; he loved it not less than they, but so long as there was defiant wrong on every hand, he wished to be able to say, 'I have fought the good fight-I have kept the faith.' He can say this now, as few that lived with him can. The crown of the faithful confessor is his. Higher than poet, scholar, or orator, stands the honest man, with his valiant confession of holy truth. When his eloquence is forgotten, when his verses are no more read, the undefiled integrity of John Pierpont will shine like a star in the memory of men.

"Comparing our friend's position as a Spiritualist with that of a crowd of most able men throughout Christendom who adhere to Romish or Protestant orthodoxy, this confessor of faith, somewhat despised, stands